21/06/2025

Come Together: Live Rust – Civic Theatre: June 20, 2025

Best concert of the year so far? I think so! Come Together: Live Rust hit the ball out of the park with this one.

Is it possible for, what is essentially a glorified covers band, to put on a show that rivals recent headliners like ZZ Top, Toto or locals like Voom and Earth Tongue?

The answer is yes.

The two main ingredients for an outstanding concert are great songs and great performances, and last night at The Civic, there was plenty of both.

In addition to the wealth of classic songs found on Neil Young’s Live Rust album, the Come Together band also played a set of other Neil classics such as Ohio, Helpless, Harvest Moon and Heart Of Gold.

The featured vocalists this time around were Dianne Swann, Jon Toogood, James Milne and Reb Fountain…but everyone’s voice was heard.

They all performed above expectations with Reb fitting right in with an incendiary version of Revolution Blues early in the first set…setting the bar high.

But her compatriots were up for the challenge…with bass player Mike Hall rising to the occasion, singing a stinging Down By The River, featuring the first of many stunning guitar solos by Brett Adams.

He and the band closed out the first hour with and even more stunning Cowgirl In The Sand and Southern Man.

Incredible.

And the second set was even better.

Starting out with acoustic gems like Sugar Mountain and I Am A Child, the show really hit its stride when Brett strapped on his own version of “Old Black” and tore through Sedan Delivery, Powderfinger (which he also sang), a long, lumbering Cortez The Killer and a joyous Cinnamon Girl before closing out the proceedings with Like A Hurricane and Tonight’s The Night.

I can’t remember being so happy at a concert.

The Civic’s seats couldn’t hold us…we were all standing, singing and slinging our own air guitars as Brett and the band made it very clear that “rock & roll is here to stay”.

The encore was perfect…Rockin’ In The Free World.

By then I was wishing we were in The Powerstation where no seats would get in the way of our desire to rock out.

But the sound at the Civic was great…good and loud, with plenty of punch. The performances were all awesome.

It wasn’t quite perfect…Lotta Love’s arrangement seemed a bit clunky and Comes A Time would have been better, in my mind, as sung by either Jon or Dianne, but not both.

Minor quibbles about an absolutely wonderful show. I know I’ve gone on and on about Brett Adams before, but I stand by every word I’ve written…he is New Zealand’s finest guitarist and deserves to be on the world stage.

We were lucky to have him on the Civic stage last night.

For the record, here are the players:

Jol Mulholland: MD/guitar/drums/vocals

Brett Adams: guitar/vocals

Dianne Swann: vocals/guitar

Jon Toogood: vocals/guitar

Mike Hall: bass/vocals

Finn Scholes: keys/trumpet/harmonica

Reb Fountain: vocals/guitar/keys

James Milne (aka Lawrence Arabia): vocals/guitar/keys

Alistair Deverick: Drums

I was fortunate enough to witness Neil Young and Crazy Horse back in 1978 during the tour that produced Live Rust, and I can tell you that this show captures the spirit and the sound of the one I saw back in the day. Now, where are those road-eyes?

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Leonie Moreland: